by Bex McLynn
Well, aye. Not the best way to prove his worth, but he’d make up for his brutish behavior once he got his hands on her thighs, and his tongue tangled in her—
Rather than a nest of clyccana—a woman’s corresponding genitalia to a man’s anthers—his focus snapped to coarse golden curls that covered her mound, shrouding her cunt. Enraptured, he reached out, then stilled his hand. He hadn’t the first clue of how to give her pleasure. And he wanted to. He wanted lust to consume her too, so that he needn’t burn alone.
“Therion,” Maude moaned his name as she spread her legs wider, parting the plump lips of her sex and revealing a rosy, glistening slit in the center of her curls.
Look at that. Unholde had gifted him with the tiniest, most beautiful cunt in the whole damn universe. If Maude was representative of a Human woman, Zver was either a rutting monster or the proud owner of the smallest cock in the Dominion.
Therion, on the other hand, wielded a blaster cannon between his thighs.
The visceral image of pumping into Maude with drawn-out strokes, sinking all the way to the root of his anthers, fizzled and died in his mind’s eye.
She had such a pretty little cunt, and he couldn’t do a thing with it. Well, nothing that would be anatomically possible with his heavy artillery.
He must have paused a moment too long, because Maude’s face flamed red as she started to close her legs. “Therion, I’m sor—”
“Ech,” Therion scolded himself because his hesitation had made her doubtful.
He planted his hands on her pale thighs. When he began to open her again, she didn’t resist him, and he responded with an appreciative groan. As he lowered himself to her cunt, his hearing caught the hitch in her breathing, follow by a shuddered exhale. A tangy, mouthwatering scent greeted him a scant second before he ran the flat of his tongue over her quivering, glistening flesh. His cock jerked at the taste of her.
“Fuck, Maude.” He nestled his nose into the springy curls over her slit and breathed her in deeper. “Godsdamn delicious.”
Maude’s entire body quaked with tiny tremors caused by the rumbling of Therion’s voice. That and the fact that he’d praised her using filthy words spoken with such reverence, he had her whole body coiling and clenching, desperate to spiral upward until she burst.
She needed him.
Startled by that admission, she mentally scrambled forward, tacking on an amendment. To lick her.
She needed him to lick her again. That first chilling swipe against her swollen, wet flesh had her seeing stars. The cold had shot through her, prickling her skin and contracting her nipples. Therion had drawn a long, involuntary response from her that left her panting with her eyes staring unseeingly at the conduits overhead.
It was all unbelievable. Maude lay flat on her back on the hard deck of a spaceship and flagrantly basked in her selfishness while a towering alien gorged himself on her pussy. Her home, her obligations, the future complications spawning within this very moment—she cared for none of it as long as Therion’s textured tongue kept thrusting inside of her.
Hell, she wouldn’t be saying that three times fast.
With his thick tongue curled inside of her, Therion groaned again. That obscene voicing of his ravenous appetite vibrated within her, thrumming against the aching pulsing of her core.
She shrieked and jerk upward, driving him in deeper. Good lord, he’d hit her g-spot. His marvelous tongue found the one spot that her past boyfriends fumbled to locate, even with her explicit directions and encouragement.
Maude’s chest burned as she gasped, struggling to pull oxygen into her body.
Was this oxygen? It must be, shouldn’t it? Because if not…
Therion adjusted his hold on her thighs, flexing his fingers that had one more joint than a human hand, and dug into her flesh. He forced her legs wider as he pressed closer. His curled tongue stroked inside of her as his nose brushed her swollen clit.
Maude’s hips snapped, launching into a mad pace of rubbing herself against him.
Hell, she would smother him.
“Therion,” she forced his name out as a whine, pleading and apologizing.
He didn’t stop and pull away. Grasping handfuls of her ass, he lifted her toward him, groaning in encouragement that spurred her on as he feasted on her.
She wanted to come. She needed to come. Desperate, she started chanting, “Clit. Clit. Clit.”
He slid his tongue out and heaved. “Show me.”
With a whimper, she used one hand to part her folds, exposing her throbbing bundle of nerves.
It appeared that was all he needed. He latched onto her clit, sucking then flicking, adjusting pressure and pace.
Her hands dove into his hair, cradling and guiding him, as he worked her with relentless, featherlight lapping. Her pussy clenched. Her abs contracted. Her thighs trembled. Her lungs starved for air. She coiled and coiled…
He shifted her, rebalancing her bottom into one, massive palm. He continued to lave at her as he slid a finger inside. Pushing through her clenching, engorged muscles, his intrusion spread her, becoming a false filling of the empty ache. It pushed her over. She came.
Maude grasped at him, desperate for an anchor as she crested through her orgasm. Her hands fisted his hair while her thighs squeezed his head. Her back arched, both offering and pressing her pussy against his hungry mouth.
His satisfied groan drew her gaze upward—past the scene of his lips closed over her mound—to his ravenous eyes.
Another jolt speared her, sinking into her chest as she gazed back at him.
Never had anyone looked at her…
Therion snapped his eyes away, breaking the seal over her pussy. A draft breezed over her wet, throbbing flesh, as confusion had her flailing to lower her legs from his shoulders.
Using his long arms, Therion snagged the blanket that he’d tossed to the deck when he first rushed into the cabin. With a fierce frown on his face, he covered her lower half, tucking the blanket beneath her using hasty shoves.
“Therion?” She reached for him, but he rocked back, swiping the back of his hand over his mouth.
With the sheen of her release coating his hand, he winked at her. “If she asks, tell her I was fucking amazing.”
Maude shook her head. “What?”
The cabin door slid open, drawing her attention.
“Dyr!” Gummy stood in the doorway and turned her head to bellow down the corridor. “He’s tussling her on the floor!”
Mortified at being found like this, Maude scrambled to get her feet under her without losing the blanket’s coverage.
“Ech, you’re talking shit, Gummy,” Therion said.
Shocked at his exasperated tone, she turned to find him giving his grandmother a petulant, dismissive wave. The intensity from his gaze was gone. Not that she expected him to keep his passion around his grandmother. But the compassion and tenderness he extended to Maude made no appearance. He’d returned to the cavalier version of himself that she’d first encountered on Radost.
Suddenly, it hit her. Therion, when she first met him in the Gwyretti compound, had been wearing a mask. When she was alone with him, she knew that he dropped his act, yet her stomach plummeted anyway. Therion flipped masks so often that he even wore one around his grandmother.
Oh, the poor man.
Gummy simply scoffed as she shuffled through the open doorway. “Just like Zver. Got your hands all over the girly.” She toed at his leg with her boot. “Best be making me more grandlings, Therry.”
Therion heaved a sigh as he lowered his chin to his chest. “She’s already pregnant.”
His grandmother grumped. “Even better. You can’t fuck this up, then.”
Therion didn’t fuck anything up. Maude did. She was pregnant, and she had to get home. But she suspected that home was unreachable, and rather than face that possibility, she grasped at a distraction, desperate for a few moments to escape her reality.
Hell, she’d used Therio
n, literally grinding herself against his face to forget her problems.
Her eyes flicked to him as he pushed to his feet, rising to confront his grandmother. “Godsdamn it, Gummy! I’m—”
“Ech.” Gummy waved him off. “Quit your bellyaching. Prykimis is here.”
Chapter Twelve
Maude gawked as Therion helped her down from the open hatch of the freighter. She’d spent several days traveling within the freighter. The ship’s interior space was comparable to a commercial airliner—cramped, yet still sizable. Unbelievably, not only did the entire freighter fit within the hangar of Prykimis, it didn’t crowd the dozen more sleek ships already docked.
“[Spirefighters,]” Kora told her.
The name meant nothing to her. The smaller ships resembled large darts and had barrels mounted on the sides. Since Therion had said that Prykimis was a spirenought, a battleship class vessel, she’d bet the smaller vessels were single-pilot combat ships.
As the massive battleship had approached the freighter, Therion invited Maude to the bridge to watch. Prykimis hadn’t matched any of Maude’s expectations for a spaceship. Her hull reflected the outboard spotlights of the freighter, giving off a pearlescent sheen like the inside of seashell. The material looked delicate, but it couldn’t be. Prykimis was a battleship with the unmistakable bays for gun turrets running along her sleek form. She might conjure the image of an organic shell—something decorative—but Maude knew she was designed for combat.
Maude flinched as another voice filtered into her mind. “[Teras Class Spirenought: Prykimis. Access Granted.]”
A second presence made contact with her, welcoming her with its curiosity. She gasped in amazement. The new presence, using Kora’s familiar interactions, startled Maude with its distinctiveness.
“Maude?” Therion gently turned her to face him.
She laughed a short, breathy harrumph of disbelief. She cast her eyes around the massive ship. “I was given access to a battleship.”
Therion smiled at her. “Don’t let it go to your head. Kimis does what she wants.” He directed his gaze upward. “Isn’t that right, you bloodthirsty behemoth?”
“But I thought you were commander of this ship,” Maude said.
“Commander of this ship.” Gummy cackled as Dyr escorted her past them. “Good one, girly.”
Therion made his typical disgruntled ‘ech’ as he pointed at his grandmother’s retreating back. “I’ll order them to toss you back into the brig, you old fart! I can do that, you know!”
Maude gaped at him. “You had your grandmother in the brig?”
Therion scoffed. “For all the good it had done. That brig only held her for, like, half a day. And it was only that long because she wanted the peace and quiet.” Therion’s voice lowered, to stress his point. “You should’ve seen the shit she pulled, all to get detained.”
He shook his head in befuddled disgust as he stared after Gummy.
Maude shook her head. How could she have not seen this before? Therion adored his grandmother.
She snapped her gaze between the pair and must have given away her revelation, because Therion snarled and jabbed a finger at her. “Stop that. It’s not what you’re thinking, Maude. I am not the kind of person who sees the good in others. Everyone around me is an incompetent shit stain compared to my awesome amazingness. But Gummy is the worst, Maude. She’s a godsdamn rash all over my anthers.”
Maude didn’t fight it. She let her delight at witnessing such a heartfelt declaration of affection shine in her eyes. “Oh, Therion. That’s a wonderful sentiment.”
He reared back from her, sounding horrified. “Gods, did you hear me at all?”
She nodded. “I most certainly did.”
Maude loved how he cared about what Gummy thought of him. Not only that, but she loved that he’d found a kindred spirit in his grandmother. She accepted him. Spoke his language. Went on full-fledged dangerous missions with him. The love between these two had Maude pressing her hands to her chest and blinking back tears.
Therion rolled his eyes and sighed. “For all the fucks. It’s not like that.”
“It’s exactly like that,” Dius mumbled, clipping Therion’s shoulder as he strode past.
Therion rocked forward, ready to snap at his cousin, but turned to her instead. “I hate that fucker too.”
“Of course you do.” Maude smiled as she helped Therion steady on his feet again.
“The only one I love is Rannik. Because he’s fucking amazing, just like me.” He shrugged. “And Seph isn’t half-bad either. But the rest of these degenerates can suck on the ass-end of an engine thruster.”
He’d been guiding her toward a large hatch, that presumably led out of the hangar and into the corridors of the ship, when his WristCune pinged. She’d come to associate the pinging sound as a notification.
Therion never glanced down at his wrist. Rather, he started humming “The Ne’er-Do-Well” again.
When she arched her brows at him, silently inviting him to explain, he shrugged and said, “She missed me.”
“Who?” Was that an edge of jealousy in her voice?
“Prykimis.”
Tender warmth flooded her. “Oh. That’s sweet.”
Kora rippled against her skin, then started to slither down her arms. “[I go.]”
“Wait! What?” Maude jolted to a stop. Kora, now thin, metallic vines, continued to wiggle, slithering down her arms and out of the cuff of her sleeves.
“Maude?” Therion reached for her, but stopped short of touching her. His eyes darted between Kora, as she spilled from Maude’s shirt cuffs, and Maude, as if checking her reaction.
“I don’t know,” Maude said helplessly as Kora started slithering out of her pant cuffs as well, re-merging with the parts of her already on the hangar deck. “She just said ‘I go’ and now this.”
With a final tug, Kora detached from Maude and formed her spindly, spider-like shape, then scurried away. Maude watched her rush off, right past an oncoming group of Teras, some in black uniforms and some in armor.
Nestled in amongst the Teras stood a woman. Seph.
With wide eyes, Seph sidestepped as Kora scuttled past her. “What is that—oh, well, hello to you, too.”
The large Teras who hovered close to Seph—Maude recognized the thane from the display—frowned as he, too, kept his eyes on Kora. With a quick head cant, two of the armored guards broke formation and tailed after Kora.
The thane turned back to Seph. “What did it say?”
Seph shrugged. “What do they all say? ‘I wake. I go. I—’ Maude?”
Maude held her breath as she watched Seph gawk at her in shock. Maude was certain that she mirrored her cousin’s expression as she stood and drank in the sight.
Seph was no longer an effervescent kid, but a beautiful woman who stood as tall as Maude herself. People who saw Maude and Seph side-by-side never believed that they were related. Seph had gorgeous, bronze skin and a tumbling mass of brown ringlets. Maude was nothing but a pale blond ghost next to Seph. Plus, Seph was always vibrant, speaking her mind and never shying away from the cruel, hateful remarks that people would fling at her—all because of the color of her skin. Maude had always been meek.
Seph overcame her shock first, probably pulling from the well of her fierce determination that Maude always admired about her cousin.
“Oh, Maudie,” Seph said.
Her tone was chiding, as if scolding Maude for arriving later than expected, but that didn’t match her burst of movement. Seph ran the distance that separated them and threw her arms around Maude in a crushing hug.
Immediately Maude registered the warmth of Seph’s body. After cuddling with Therion for days and having Kora’s cool metal wrapped around her, Seph felt like a blanket fresh from the dryer. Maude sank into the embrace as Seph hiccupped and sobbed and squeezed.
Seph pressed her cheek into Maude’s neck and grumbled, “Stupid stasis bins. Goddamn stupid stasis bins.”
/> Maude could only imagine what tore through Seph’s mind. Yes, they were both shocked to see one another, but Maude was astonished to be hugging a grown-up Seph; Maude could only imagine how Seph must be reeling after not seeing her for a good decade.
Seph pulled back, her eyes red and her cheeks wet with tears. “It’s so good to see you. Alive and well.” Her brow furrowed in concern. “You are well, aren’t you?”
Maude started to answer, but Therion spoke first. “She should see Lekar.”
“Oh my god, yes, Lekar.” Seph stepped back and wiped at her eyes and laughed. “I don’t know why I’m crying so much.”
Maude shrugged and wiped at her own watery eyes. “You’re probably as overwhelmed and happy as I am.”
“I am. I really am.” Seph sighed and then startled Maude when she flung herself at Therion, wrapping her arms around the tall Teras, forcing him to take a staggering step back. “Thank you for bring her here safely, Ther. Thank you. Thank you.”
Therion patted her cousin’s back with awkward thumps. “Come on, Starburst. Just doing my duty.”
Seph fisted his jacket and continued to mumbled incoherently into his chest, rocking her head back and forth as she started crying again.
Therion gave his brother a panicked look. “Zver?”
Maude watched as the thane strode over, his face blank, yet he gently extracted her cousin from Therion.
Seph leaned back into the thane as she groaned and wiped at her eyes. “What is up with all this crying?”
Maude smiled as she patted her belly. “I blame mine on pregnancy hormones. That and being abducted by aliens.”
“Oh my god, that’s right! I forgot all about that! Not the alien part, but the—” Seph’s eyes went wide again as she honed in on Maude’s belly. “Are you still…? Um, have you had…?”
Maude watched Seph begin to pale, spurring her to say in a rush, “I’m fine. Nicole’s baby’s fine. I’m still pregnant. Not even out of the first trimester.”
Seph grew paler and her voice sounded weak. “You really do look exactly the same.”
